New record in sight. The Sochi Games will not only go down as the most expensive in history. At the rate the thermometer is climbing, they could also be listed as the hottest. In recent days, it has become common to come across spectators in shirt sleeves in the Olympic Park. The hockey players have gotten into the habit of starting their warm-up outside, at the entrance to the rink, in sweatshirts and without gloves. Wearing a hat is no longer necessary, even in the mountains. “Sochi 2014 Summer Games,” the media joke.
Some numbers. Wednesday morning, it was 7° in the finish area of the women's downhill in alpine skiing. The day before, the mercury approached 9° along the toboggan run. In Adler, at sea level, the Olympic Park has been showing between 12 and 13° in the shade during the day for two days.
Result? “For the moment, nothing untoward,” says Mark Adams, the IOC spokesperson. The tests took place without incident. We have not had to postpone any races, as was the case in Turin in 2006 and Vancouver in 2010. The weather is superb. »
Certainly. To date, the program has not changed an inch. We could barely notice, here and there, a handful of canceled or shortened training sessions. Anecdotal.
But teeth are starting to grit among the competitors. In snowboarding, biathlon or cross-country, falls are increasing, most often caused by snow with the consistency of soup. The men's sprint event, in cross-country skiing, resembled at times a short-track race, with the skiers falling like bowling pins. In the biathlon, the Canadian Jean-Philippe le Guellec abruptly broke one of his skis, which remained stuck in flimsy snow. In skeleton, competitors struggle to find equipment suitable for a track that is too soft.
The Russians anticipated this. No one in the country has forgotten that Joseph Stalin loved coming to Sochi to taste its tropical climate. In recent years, organizers have stored more than 700.000 m3 of snow in huge silos. Aleksandra Kosterina, spokesperson for the Organizing Committee, admitted: “We have started using these snow reserves. I don't have all the details, but we will repeat the process tested during the pre-Olympic events. The temperatures were often high there, but the competitions all took place in good conditions. »
The Russians have everything planned. But not a winter that looks like summer.
